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Summary
Summary
MariNaomi's newest graphic novel tours the mid-90's US and Japanese illegal hostess bar scene and her own personal cultural awakening.
"The best comic about being Asian American in Japan. Like Fun Home and Persepolis , Turning Japanese is at once modest and grand. MariNaomi is a master of the small, intimate moments that build to a surprisingly emotional climax."-- Jason Shiga , Ignatz and Eisner Award-winner
"In Turning Japanese , Mari's unflinching honesty, open heart, and hard-earned wisdom challenges us to embrace the unexpected detours that unfold in our own lives."-- Yumi Sakugawa , author of Your Illustrated Guide to Becoming One with the Universe
In 1995, twenty-two-year-old Mari had just exited a long-term relationship, moving from Mill Valley to San Jose, California. Soon enough, she falls in love, then finds employment at a hostess bar for Japanese expats, where she is determined to learn the Japanese language and culture. Turning Japanese is a story about otherness, culture clashes, generation gaps, and youthful impetuosity.
MariNaomi is the author and illustrator of the SPACE Prize-winning graphic memoir Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume , Ages 0 to 22 (Harper Perennial, 2011), the Eisner-nominated Dragon's Breath and Other True Stories (2dcloud/Uncivilized Books, 2014), and her self-published Estrus Comics (1998 to 2009). Her work has appeared in over sixty print anthologies, and has been featured on such websites as the Rumpus , the Weeklings , Los Angeles Review of Books , Midnight Breakfast , Truthout , XOJane , Buzzfeed , Bitch Media , and more. Mari's work on the Rumpus won a SPACE Prize and an honorable mention in Houghton Mifflin's Best American Comics 2013 .
Author Notes
MariNaomi is the author and illustrator of the SPACE Prize-winning graphic memoir Kiss & Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0 to 22 (Harper Perennial, 2011), the Eisner-nominated Dragon's Breath and Other True Stories (2dcloud/Uncivilized Books, 2014), and her self-published Estrus Comics (1998 to 2009). Her work has appeared in over sixty print anthologies, and has been featured on such websites as The Rumpus, The Weeklings, LA Review of Books, Midnight Breakfast, Truth-out, XOJane, Buzzfeed, Bitch Media, and more. Mari's work on the Rumpus won a SPACE Prize and an honorable mention in Houghton Mifflin's Best American Comics 2013.
MariNaomi's artwork has been featured in such venues as the De Young Museum, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco's Asian American Museum and the Japanese American Museum in Los Angeles. In 2011, Mari toured with the literary roadshow Sister Spit. She is also the creator and curator of the Cartoonists of Color Database and the LGBTQ Cartoonists Database.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Graphic memoirist MariNaomi (Kiss and Tell) explores a chunk of her 20s in the 1990s, spent working in hostess bars in California and Japan while traveling with her then-fiancé, Giuseppe. Naomi's off-the-cuff, thoughtful anecdotes look at a sometimes banal, sometimes frightening social space. It's not exactly sex work, but hostess work leans on the same idea: making male clients feel important and desired. Naomi's simple, brush-drawn artwork tells the story clearly with a breezy tone, though the images' starkness causes occasional narrative confusion. Naomi deals with the nuances of being hapa, half white and half Japanese, while trying to get her mother to speak Japanese with her. After some time, Naomi suffers an anxiety attack from the constant harassment at her job. Threads around anxiety and racial identity culminate in a thoughtful scene in which Naomi visits an ancient temple known to hold a balming effect for travelers. This book has something of the same effect in its exploration of the many complexities of identity and romance. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
The rite-of-passage chronicles of the artist at age 22, coming to terms with her ethnic heritage. A virtuosic comic artist whose slapdash introspection is occasionally reminiscent of Lynda Barry, MariNaomi (Kiss Tell: A Romantic Resume, Ages 0-22, 2011, etc.) tells a story here that is both singular and universal, sure to resonate most strongly with females facing similar challenges of young adulthood. It takes place in 1995, beginning and ending with the breakup of a relationship, while the pages in between detail a relationship that almost became a marriage. After leaving San Francisco for San Jose"I needed to clear my head and reboot, so I chose to do so more than fifty miles away"she quickly became involved with her co-worker Giuseppe after both had confided about their history of broken relationships. Though she says that the common bond was that they were "both sluts," promiscuity didn't seem to be an issue during their year together. Instead, they faced challenges from a number of low-paying jobs, the ethnic divide between his Italian culture and her Japanese-American one, and an extended visit to Japan, where they realized that their impulsive decision to become engaged was likely a mistake. The author's pilgrimage toward cultural illumination began when she stumbled into a job as a hostess at a Japanese-American bar, where the young women competed for tips and at least one was a borderline prostitute. She wondered why her mother had never bothered to teach her Japanese, and she enlisted her fiance to accompany her to Tokyo, where a visitor's visa would allow her to reunite with her extended family and immerse herself in their culture. By the time she returned, her perspective on her Japanese heritage had shifted: "The cultural divide was much deeper than I'd thought possible." This third volume of memoir reads like a chapter in an ongoing series, leading readers to anticipate what comes next. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
In her twenties, MariNaomi is working as a hostess in a Japanese men's club in San Jose when she decides to learn the language of her maternal heritage in preparation for a trip to Japan, her first as an adult, with her fiancé, Giuseppe. The day-to-day is tough, though. The hostess bar isn't exactly legal, and she's dealing with a mystery illness that leaves her periodically wrecked, scared, and alone in bed. In the second half of the memoir, Mari and Guiseppe reach Japan to sightsee and visit family. As in her previous work, such as Kiss & Tell (2011), MariNaomi's art is often lighthearted and funny, making heavy themes, like the struggle with her culture and, later, her relationship, approachable. Her black-and-white frames are neat, spare, and varied in format. Thanks to her smart design, readers can tell when Japanese is spoken by bracketed speech bubbles, and this alone exposes multiple planes of conversation in a single frame. This confessional travelogue by a talented artist is a solid addition to graphic memoirs.--Bostrom, Annie Copyright 2016 Booklist
